Okay, so I went a little too hard the other day and injured my foot during a kickbox routine. Didn’t really hurt at first, but in the middle of the night I had a stabbing pain which caused me to jump out of bed and do the crazy dance in the dark! The next day it was fat. The next day it was even fatter. And by the end of that day it was fat AND black & blue!
Nooooooo! This can’t be happening now, not NOW when I’m in the big finale, the final stretch, the three-month push to my first Project Waistline anniversary weigh-in event! I have been XL-partying a bit too much the last week or two, what with the holidays. I was going to use my foot (and the *rest* of my body, for that matter) to work off some of those extra calories I had been indulging in. Now I’m sidelined for a spell. I’m going to have to use my wits to stay on pace.
Hmmm… this may just be the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Now I get to dive into this program (and see what could be the most dynamic results) by adjusting my eating habits alone. I just hope my foot recovers soon. I’m like a little kid…I LOVE my exercise. Sitting still is like containment in a medieval torture chamber for me!
Searching YouTube for encouragement I stumbled upon two excellent ideas. The first is a short presentation about caloric concentration. Remember, we should always be gravitating to the low calorie concentrated foods, and shying away from the high calorie concentrated foods. Here is a quick, concise, visual explanation of this concept from the Small Step Advocate, Nutritionist Sid Garza-Hillman:
CLICK HERE
For a deeper understanding of the “why” I found this humorous talk by one of the authors of The Pleasure Trap, Behavioral Psychologist Doug Lisle:
Have you taken notice how restaurants play into our weakness – the human pleasure trap? They serve us tiny anemic house salads with gobs of high fat dressings, then a gigantic plate with limp over-cooked veggies on the side like an afterthought, punctuating the mountain of higher calorie dense food (usually meat & taters). The quantity of raw salad & cooked veggies are insignificant enough that they leave plenty of space for those high density main courses… quite the opposite of where we want to be.
The video links above emphasize a few simple & effective power strategies that we can incorporate into our lives, particularly if we have limited mobility at this time:
* Stop focusing on weightloss (okay, okay, okay… I’m listening!)
* Focus on healthy lifestyle… strength, endurance, flex-mobility, disease/pain free living
* Make morning oatmeal a HABIT !!!
* Eat your main meal in this order, in descending-sized servings:
– HUGE SIZED: raw salad
– MEDIUM SERVING: cooked veggies
– ALL U CAN EAT (w/out exploding): starchy main course (beans, potatoes, pasta, etc)
Don’t you just love this concept? It makes the high starchy main course act like your dessert. You fill most of your belly with the nutritionally dense raw salad and lightly steamed veggies, then you get to reward yourself with the higher calorie starchy foods (which I, for one, crave more than I do a sweet dessert!) It’s as though I can tell myself, “YES, you may have that pasta, you may have that slice of avocado toast… just be sure to eat it when your tummy is nearly full 🙂
Okay, so I’m going to incorporate these ideas into my eating routine until I’m back on my feet again, kickboxing away the calories. Even if I do not separate my food and eat it in this order, I will combine it in proportions in line with the concept.
Hasta la vista baby!
